The Philosophy of Dara Shikoh

Speaker: Dr Naresh, scholar, novelist and poet;  formerly Professor at Panjab University, Chandigarh where he held the Bhai Vir Singh Chair in Modern Literature, Chairman, Chandigarh Sahitya Academy. The author and translator of over one hundred books in several languages, a recent work is Alakh Prakash, a Hindi rendering of Dara Shikoh’s translation and commentary on 50 Upanishads titled Sirr-i-Akbar, published by the Madhya Pradesh Urdu Akademi.

Chair: Prof. Akhlaque Ahmad ‘Ahan”, Chairperson, Centre for Persian and Central Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University

Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Shah Jahan who would have been Mughal Emperor was a Vedanti Sufi who was executed by his younger brother, Aurangzeb. To date his thought represents a quest for truth and a spiritual philosophy which would bring together different religious traditions. A follower of Sarmad Kashani and Miyan Mir he tried to arrive at a common ground between Hinduism and Islam. The lecture will delve into the conceptual universe of the saval-javab or conversation with Baba Lal, Dara’s translation of the Upanishads and the Majma?-ul-ba?rain, or, The mingling of the two oceans.